iPad mini is out and low cost iPad 2 is in

Apple's iPad mini, a 7 inch tablet planned by the company is a very hot topic that is heading forward into the next year but it is not sure that this plan will be executed in 2012.

Brian Blair, the Analyst at Wedge Partners said Apple has spent more than a year in testing this 7 inch tablet model but it seems like the firm has not got any plans to launch this product in 2012. This is quite contrary to the article, Is Apple launching a mini iPad in 2012? we discussed earlier.

Instead of this mini iPad plan, Apple seems to focus on the iPad 2 as a product in its lineup which includes even iPad 3. The price of the iPad 2 will be dropped little. This strategy is followed by Apple usually; it keeps the previous generation device for a lost cost and then launch the new version which also happened in the case of iPhone.

However, Apple did not follow this strategy for the original iPad making it the low cost option and launching the new model, iPad 2. When iPad 2 was launched no other tablet competitor existed and posed a threat to the dominance of Apple. Now, Apple is facing competition from Amazon's Kindle Fire that seems to do pretty well and also expects that there will be more from the others like Barnes & Nobel.

Moreover, iPad 2 has not got many changes when compared to the original iPad and when the iPad 3 comes into existence with the Retina Display as the rumors claim it will be a great upgrade to the tablet. A low cost iPad 2 with the iPad 3 is a very good way of marketing for Apple.